The transportation industry in the United States is a highly regulated and complex industry in which various tasks must be performed by multiple parties to ensure the safe, cost effective, precise, and timely delivery of goods. Hiring and on-boarding truck drivers is the process of coordinating recruiters and sellers to hire the most qualified applicants from a pool of drivers to ensure the safety of the public and the continuation of the carrier or trucking company. Various data must be collected from the driver applicant, as well as from criminal databases, credit reports, driving records, and previous employers to determine if the applicant is qualified depending on the driver status such as student, interstate, or hazardous material. Different requirements are placed upon the carrier to hire the appropriate driver with specific endorsements, experience, and criminal behavior. Therefore, the eligibility of the driver must be evaluated against the standards set by the carrier's requirements for a particular driving task.
Finally, many documents, certifications, and agreements must be either signed or verified to qualify a driver or a carrier to carry a shipment. Often the pressure on recruiters to fill trucks with drivers, or an agent for a logistics company's motivation to sell freight and increase commissions compels them to cut corners and not follow established policies. Timeliness also plays a key role in transportation because the first offer for employment or acceptance of a shipment often receives the contract. As a result, “best practices” have been difficult to enforce because there was no system that required that a process be followed or gave management visibility to those who ignored policies. In addition, there was no way to communicate and make automated the decision process between disparate systems and content contained on paper.
In the conventional process, a carrier of goods manually collects information from the driver, from governmental and other third party databases regarding licensure, previous employers, and other applicable information. After the collection of this disparate data, the carrier manually reviews the information and determines whether the driver is eligible or otherwise suitable to transport freight. If the driver is deemed eligible, the carrier manually creates the appropriate contracts and documentation and sends it to the driver for acceptance and signature, usually via the United States Postal Service or facsimile. The carrier waits until the driver returns all of the documentation and manually analyzes the returned documents to determine if the driver properly executed and returned the necessary forms. The carrier manually creates an orientation date and documents and enters data for driver information into the dispatching system to facilitate dispatches. A particular carrier may have its own requirements for all drivers transporting goods that differ from the requirements of other transportation carriers.
Drivers may become ineligible to transport freight due to a change in the driver's safety, health, criminal activity, financial, or certification status. There is currently no efficient way to determine and communicate the current status of a previously approved driver or remove the driver from the active eligible driver pool if the driver no longer meets the qualifying requirements for the transportation task.
Logistics management is the process of coordinating and facilitating the pickup, shipment, and delivery of goods. Depending on the type of goods shipped, requirements are placed upon the carrier or trucking company. For example, some carriers and their equipment may not be suitable for the delivery of milk, but may be suitable for the delivery of clothing. Different shippers also screen their carriers based upon safety and security by checking the carrier's driving record, insurance status, driving experience, etc. Additionally, various trucking companies or individual carriers qualify for the shipment of certain goods, along certain routes, but do not qualify to ship the same goods on other routes. Therefore, an evaluation of the eligibility of the carrier or their trucking company is evaluated against the shipment load, route, and requirements for a particular shipment. Thus, similar to a driver's eligibility to work for a carrier, a carrier may be selected by a manufacturer to support shipment of the manufacturer's goods to various customers.